Thursday, May 22, 2008

Judicial Perversion in Texas, Phoenix Takes Its Shot

The appellate court in Austin determined today that sexual abuse of children is okay with them, as long as it can be cloaked in some sort of pretense---no mater how preposterous---of a religious belief.

The Phoenix polar lander is apparently a collection of hardware from an earlier canceled mission and leftovers from LockMart's ill-conceived and poorly implemented Mars Polar Lander. Despite months of careful expectation control, JPL-NASA and LockMart personnel must be grinding their teeth as they wait to see if they forgot anything this time. Phoenix is due to land Sunday.

The news conference on NASA-TV included an actually reasonable answer to one of my questions about the mission---why are they sending a fixed lander to Mars, instead of a much more productive rover? Evidently, the polar terrain is sort of repetitive. The lander is hoped to excavate several trenches into the Martian terrain to verify orbital observations of persistent water ice, and to check the soil chemistry. It would be interesting, if it happens, but then my expectations are under control.